little blog on the prairie

Is this selfish?

Tomorrow is the Killer Cockapoo’s fourth birthday. I can’t believe my baby is four. Although she is definitely slowing down, her killer instinct has not waned. The other day she caught a full-grown rabbit in the dark and brought it to our stoop to show me her conquest. She dropped it and proceeded to do laps around it like a vulture. When I opened the door to see if this animal was alive or dead, the bunny took off.

We are going to have a little party for her, with one catch. The cake will be of the human variety, meaning too much sugar for our canine companion. If this were still farmer’s market season, I could have bought her a proper Happy Birthday treat. I found something at Target, but it was for Valentine’s Day and therefore had a ridiculous VD price tag. Too bad there isn’t a suitable place in this town to buy gourmet dog treats …

Well, it’s clear from the commenters around here that the holidays have given us all a dose of crabby.

I don’t think I can cure that, but here I am offering your chance to vent all you want. It’s been a while since we’ve done a Speak Your Piece here at lbotp. Here’s the rules: no personal attacks please.

I will go first: I might get slaughtered for this, but can the University of Illinois pep band PLEASE learn a new song or two or four??? If I have to sit through one more “Carry on My Wayward Son” or “I Go to Rio” I may go postal or something.
What’s your beef?

Happy Holidays everyone … posting will be on an as-needed basis until New Year’s.

So this is really cool people — someone in Chicago evidently has a lot of time on his/her hands and has put together a website detailing where to see the best Christmas lights in Chicagoland. Even though we’re Jewish (last time I checked) the lbotp family loves Christmas lights (except for the environmentalist in me who decries the waste of electricity, bah humbug.) Anyway, driving around to see Christmas lights is good clean holiday fun, especially in the dreary days of December.

Where are there good Christmas light displays in the C-U area? There’s the Candlestick Lane area in Urbana (Grant Place, just southwest of the intersection of Washington Street and Philo Road), which is classic and campy. There’s the house at the corner of Prospect and Greencroft. And after that I’m stumped. So help a girl out and recommend a few places for us to cruise by in the minivan, if you would. I’m sure we’re not the only ones in need of our Christmas light fix.

At a holiday party for work the other day, I was having a conversation with a colleague, who is around 40 years old and currently childless. I had been under the impression from previous conversations with said colleague that having children was not in his and his professor wife’s plans. So imagine my surprise when he told me that all of a sudden they are thinking about bringing a child into the world.

But what really floored me was the reason he gave. “Well, everyone around us is having babies.” I wanted to give him the old “If your best friend jumps off a bridge …” speech but instead I blurted out, “That’s really not a good reason to have a child.” He smiled and laughed, but didn’t really give me another reason why they were all of a sudden considering such a major life change.

So, with all deference to Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City, is having a child the new status symbol in C-U?

When it comes to food, my husband has the cravings of a pregnant woman. His latest fetish: chocolate chip cookies from McDonald’s. Not the old half-stale commercially bland cookies you can get at any McDonald’s. No, these are fresh-baked chocolate cookies that usually come out of the oven and into the convenience of your car.

You might not know that such things even exist, because for some reason the McDonald’s franchises in C-U don’t acknowledge their existence. He has found these cookies mainly on our many travels over the river and through the woods to grandma’s house. They tend to have them at McDonald’s that dot interstate exits.

So if anyone can lend a clue to the mystery of the missing cookies, we’re all ears. But you know, it might not be such a bad thing that these cookies cannot be found in our midst — at least it is for Mr. lbotp’s waistline.

There’s been a lot of traffic through here this week from all over the country. People from as far away as California and Colorado have stumbled upon lbotp while looking for information about Danville’s most famous small residents (that precludes Keon Clark, giggle) – the Ferrill quintuplets. If you put “danville quints” into Google, for some reason my site comes up first.

The reason for all this traffic is the miniseries on the Ferrill Five (as they are called) that is currently airing on cable channel TLC, the same folks responsible for such reality TV fare as “A Wedding Story” and “A Baby Story.” I watched the third installment last night — there is one more, I believe.

What’s compelling about the series from a local angle is how the producers have made the city and people of Danville, the Ferrill’s hometown, a character in and of itself. The town of Danville rallies around the Ferrills; the town of Danville resents the Ferrills. It’s an interesting commentary on the issue of multiple births and the ripple effect they can create in a small community.

I love my neighborhood, although it’s not because of my neighbors. They’re pretty odd. On one side, we have the people who spend more time in their garage than they do in their house. On the other side, we have the man whose wife picked up and left him in the middle of the night (and we got to hear all about it), who uses a circa 1904 lawn mower and who has a penchant for exercising while showing more skin than a Chippendale.

However, weird naked guy (as we not-so-fondly call him), actually happens to be a pretty smart dude. He is one of the 10 professors and scientists from the University of Illinois to share in Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize.

This doesn’t mean I will stop telling weird naked guy to put some clothes on under my breath. I guess we will have to start calling him the weird naked Nobel Prize winner.

Dear Santa,

It is the seventh night of Chanukah and I have a confession to make. I have been a lazy blogger.

I want to get excited about the proposed downtown Champaign parking fee increases, but I just can’t muster the energy.

I want to remind the world where to shop locally this holiday season — you know the Champaign sales tax receipts just haven’t been up to snuff this year — but I have another Chanukah cookie that needs to be eaten.

I want to write something compelling and insightful about the house that was torn down on Prospect Avenue, across from the Champaign Country Club, and the issues of tear downs in general — but I have to go watch another archived episode of “Grey’s Anatomy.”

Please accept my heartfelt apology.

Sincerely,

lbotp

After Peanut came and I was bordering on insanity, we hired a cleaning lady to come to our house twice a month. She does a decent job, is relatively affordable, and mostly reliable. But sometimes I wonder if there is anything between her ears.

This is the second holiday season we’ve been through together, and for the second season in a row she has given us a Christmas present. I don’t have a problem with that, except for the fact that … the woman cleans our house. I mean, she sees every inch of this house, twice a month. Do we display any Christian artifacts? Do we decorate for any Christian holidays? Does she not see the HEBREW writing on several pieces of artwork? The Judaica collection? Does she not see the Happy Hanukkah gel stickers on the sliding glass door, the menorah on the kitchen counter? Heck NO, Definitely NO, Evidently not, Of course not, and is she literate?

So what has she given us for two years in a row? Christmas tree ornaments. As she put it, she gave us the gift early so we could enjoy it.

Oh well. I guess it’s the thought that counts.

Happy Chanukah Hanukkah Hanukah!

Happy Jewish Winter Holiday Everybody!